Advisory Board

collaborating with academic and industry leaders

Prof. Allen J. Bard, PhD

University of Texas at Austin

Allen J. Bard, Professor, Norman Hackerman-Welch Regents Chair, and Director of the Center for Electrochemistry at The University of Texas at Austin, has been called a “father of modern electrochemistry” for his work developing scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM), his co-discovery of electrogenerated chemiluminescence, his important contributions to understanding photoelectrochemistry, and his co-authorship of the influential and widely used textbook, Electrochemical Methods: Fundamentals and Applications.

Dr. Bard attended The City College of New York (B.S., 1955) and Harvard University (M.A., 1956, Ph.D., 1958). He joined the Chemistry faculty at The University of Texas at Austin in 1958, and has spent his entire career there. Dr. Bard spent a sabbatical in the CNRS lab of Jean-Michel Savéant in Paris in 1973 and a semester in 1977 at the California Institute of Technology, where he was a Sherman Mills Fairchild Scholar. He was also a Baker lecturer at Cornell University in the spring of 1987 and the Robert Burns Woodward visiting professor at Harvard University in 1988. He was awarded an honorary Ph.D. by the Weizmann Institute of Science.

He has worked as mentor and collaborator with over 100 graduate students, about 200 postdoctoral associates, and numerous visiting scientists. He has published over 960 peer-reviewed research papers and 75 book chapters, and has received over 23 patents. He has authored three books, Chemical Equilibrium (1966), Electrochemical Methods: Fundamentals and Applications (1980, 2nd Ed., 2001, with L. R. Faulkner), and Integrated Chemical Systems: A Chemical Approach to Nanotechnology (1994). He served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Chemical Society 1982–2001. His research interests involve the application of electrochemical methods to the study of chemical problems.

Dr. Bard has been awarded many of the most prestigious honors for scientific achievement in his field, including election to the National Academy of Sciences (1982), the Olin-Palladium Medal of The Electrochemical Society (1987), the Priestley Medal from the American Chemical Society (2002), the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2008), the National Medal of Science (2011), the Enrico Fermi Award from the U.S. Dept. of Energy (2013), and the Torbern Bergman Medal from the Swedish Chemical Society (2014). The Electrochemical Society established the Allen J. Bard Award in 2013 to recognize distinguished contributions to the field of electrochemistry.

Bernd Bauer, PhD

FuMA-Tech

Dr. Bernd Bauer is founder and CEO of FuMA-Tech GmbH. FuMA-Tech, based in Germany, was founded in 1993 and is a leading manufacturer of ion exchange membranes. The Company has comprehensive skills ranging from the synthesis of raw and auxiliary materials to the conversion of these materials to membranes and finally to their application in industrial membrane separation plants. The Company is specialized in fuel cell technology and membrane separation technology, particularly for the treatment of aqueous solutions.

Dr. Bauer received his Diploma in Polymer Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences in Aalen (Germany) in 1982, his Diploma in Chemistry from the University of Stuttgart (Germany) in 1988, and his Dr.-Ing. In Chemical Engineering from University of Twente (Netherlands) in 1996. Prior to founding FuMA-Tech, Dr. Bauer was a research fellow at the Fraunhofer-Institute for Interfaces and Membranes.

Angelo Ottaviani

NuTech Consulting

Angelo Ottaviani has over 40 years direct experience in chlor-alkali and electrochemistry field. He graduated as a chemical engineer from Politecnico of Milano after which time he joined De Nora Group. Over a 40 year career at De Nora Group, Mr. Ottaviani held a variety of roles including Process and Customer Service Manager, Plant Erection and Project Manager, and Development Project and R&D Manager. Mr. Ottaviani has a long history in new technology development starting with zero gap cell chlor-alkali cell design in the 1970’s, through to Generation 6 chlor-alkali cell design in the 2000’s. While working for De Nora Group, Mr. Ottaviani worked with ENEA, Arthur de Little, North Western Power Systems, Mannesmann, Neoplan, Fiat, MAN and others in the development of fuel cell technologies. Most recently, Mr. Ottaviani worked with the Bayer-De Nora joint venture in the development of oxygen depolarized cathode technology for chlor-alkali and HCl electrolysis. After retiring from De Nora Group, Mr. Ottaviani founded NuTech Consuling and actively consults in the chlor-alkali field in the USA, Canada and Germany.

Prof. Steven J. Thorpe, PhD

University of Toronto

Steven J. Thorpe is a triple graduate of the Faculty of Applied Science, receiving his B.A.Sc. degree in Metallurgy and Materials Science in 1980, followed by the M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University in 1982 and 1985 respectively. Steven J. Thorpe joined the Department of Materials Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a NATO Science Fellow from 1985 to 1987. He returned to the University of Toronto as a NSERC University Research Fellow and was promoted to Professor in 1998. Professor S.J. Thorpe spent a two-year leave of absence at Stuart Energy Systems Corporation, where he served as Vice President, Technology. Prior to this leave of absence, Dr. Thorpe held positions as Scientist and Senior Scientist with The Electrolyser Corporation Ltd. Before joining Electrolyser, he was a Visiting Scientist, Brookhaven National Laboratories. Professor Thorpe has recently served as Vice Dean, Undergraduate in the Faculty of Applied Science and as Associate Chair, Graduate Studies for the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He is currently serving his second as a Governor, Constituency IV (Engineering) for the University of Toronto and is current Chair, Planning and Budget for the University of Toronto and has been members of both the Academic and Business Board. He also serves on the Electrochemistry Advisory Board of Chemetry Corporation.

Professor Thorpe has also held numerous positions in Professional Societies including, Secretary, Education Chairman, and Vice Chair of the Ontario Chapter of ASM, Executive and Director of the Basic Sciences Division of CIM and the Corrosion Section of the Metallurgical Society of CIM, and Academic Leader of the Metals and Ceramics Program of the Ontario Center for Materials Research (OCMR).

Professor Thorpe has won numerous awards including the Faculty Teaching Award, the Academics in Industry Award from OCMR, the Outstanding Young Members Award from the Ontario Chapter of ASM, and the W.S. Wilson Metal and Centennial Thesis Award.

Dr. Thorpe’s current research is focused on the properties of surfaces and interfaces though examination of the electrochemical behaviour of new amorphous and nanocrystalline materials development in the fields of electronic packaging, hydrogen generation, fuel cells, and biomaterials. Dr. Thorpe has co-authored more than 70 refereed publications and is the inventor / co-inventor on more than 100 patents / patent applications patents on novel alloy chemistries used as electrocatalysts in the field of hydrogen generation in water electrolysis and in hydrogen use in fuel cells, as well as their use in components and systems designs such as hydrogen fueling of vehicles. He has served as supervisor or co-supervisor for > 80 graduate and undergraduate student theses.